Steve Bannon Says U.S. in Economic War With China

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Aug. 17, 2017, 7:23 AM GMT / Updated Aug. 17, 2017, 7:23 AM GMT

By Reuters

The United States is in an economic war with China, U.S President Donald Trump's chief political strategist has said, warning Washington is losing the fight but is about to hit China hard over unfair trade practices.

Steve BannonCarolyn Kaster / AP

In an wide-ranging interview with prospect.org published Wednesday, Steve Bannon also weighed in on worsening tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, and the furor caused by white nationalist marches in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

"We're at economic war with China," said Bannon in the interview published in Wednesday.

"It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it's gonna be them if we go down this path," he was quoted as saying.

"If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, 10 years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover."

"Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Bannon said the United States would use Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from U.S. corporations doing business in China and follow up with complaints against steel and aluminum dumping, according to prospect.org.

"We're going to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us," said Bannon, who acknowledged he was battling trade doves within the U.S. administration.

He said there was no reason to go soft on China in order to get Beijing's support over North Korea because he believed China would do little more to rein in Pyongyang.

Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear build-up with verifiable inspections and the United States removed its troops from the Korean peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote, prospect.org reported.

In contrast to Trump's threat of "fire and fury" against North Korea, Bannon said: "There’s no military solution, forget it."

"Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about ..."

Asked about any connection between his economic nationalism and white nationalism in the United States, and in particular the racist violence in Charlottesville, Bannon said: "Ethno-nationalism — it's losers. It's a fringe element."

"I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more. These guys are a collection of clowns."

However, Bannon, who formerly led the right-wing website Breitbart, said focusing on race would help the Republicans politically.

"The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."